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An epiphany: customer service is measured by the degree to which it positively or negatively affects your day, or sometimes even your life.

Enter spud!, short for Small Potatoes Urban Delivery, an originally Vancouver-ite grocer that delivers local and/or organic food and green products to your door. I was sold purely on the “delivers to your door” part.

But spud! also touts the title of being “North America’s greenest grocer”. They buy carbon offsets to make every delivery to and from their warehouse carbon neutral, they carry WAY more local and organic produce than your regular grocery store, and they even keep track of how every customer is saving the environment with every order (my current standings since January 6: 10.4 kg of CO2 saved from avoided car trips, 1.9 kg of CO2 saved from buying local, 7.4 kg of food waste reduced, 798 pages of grocery store flyers not printed, and 50 bags avoided by using a reusable bin).

When I signed up, the website carried a banner stating that the average family spent 90 minutes shopping for groceries per week, but it only took spud! customers 9 minutes to complete their shopping. Was I, the unstoppable Energizer bunny, going to feel that 81 minute difference?

You bet I did.

Instead of worrying about when I’m going to slide in a trip to the grocery store, I’m worrying about how to effectively use (and not waste!) all the beautiful produce in my fridge. I’m pretty much forced to eat better by not buying fast food at work, but you know what: I am totally ok with that. I feel way better, not only because I am putting good food in my body, but because I am reducing my impact on the environment and making better use of my time. Although I do miss jamming to The Clash’s “Lost in the Supermarket” while wandering the cavernous warehouses of Costco and Superstore.

Did I mention that they keep sending me free stuff? Well, thankfully they’ve stopped (for now…), or else I would have been totally head-over-heels in love and my standards for customer service would have been way too high for the rest of the world, but here’s some freebies and complimentary items I’ve received so far:

• three $5 off coupons
• a sample of Nature’s Path cereal
• a spud! bag made of recycled plastic
• a personally addressed letter from the Calgary General Manager

Sure, they might carry everything you need for that moussaka you’re making for family dinner, but maybe eggplants aren’t in season. Or maybe you didn’t quite order enough so you’re going to have make a trip to the grocery store anyway. And maybe Wednesday deliveries messes up your routine of cooking Sunday evenings after that grocery run so now you have to totally readjust your weekly schedule.

But change is good, right?

spud! serves mainland B.C., Greater Victoria, Vancouver Island, Calgary, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and L.A.